I had hoped that training camps would be in Victoria with the new affiliation with the SKings. Bummer. Although I did go to high school in Penticton, and I know that they just refurbished the old Memorial like 7 or so years ago. Seems odd that they would build another arena now, especially for the BCHL. Oh well. Go Panthers..

Victoriafan wrote:I had hoped that training camps would be in Victoria with the new affiliation with the SKings. Bummer. Although I did go to high school in Penticton, and I know that they just refurbished the old Memorial like 7 or so years ago. Seems odd that they would build another arena now, especially for the BCHL. Oh well. Go Panthers..

Yeeehaw - Pen-Hi.

Memorial is too old & small to really be a draw anymore. The new building will seat 5,100, and allow for concerts & bigger conventions as well. Considering Kelowna is already crying they didn't build their's big enough, it's about time Penticton had something that wasn't over 50 years old.

Team Switzerland is committed to having their pre-olympic training there.

And now itll be the training camp home of the Canucks.

Last edited by SRsez on Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Victoriafan wrote:Building a 5000 seat arena in a city of 35000 is akin to building a 200,000 seat arena in Vancouver. Not smart.

And you grew up there?

The current building seats 1900, and is packed every night. Sure 5100 seats is a lot now, but won't be in the future. Are you suggesting they should build barely to accomodate now, so as to creat imaginary demand? Building anything smaller isn't very cost effective, I'm certain.
Who cares if there's some empty seats? You know you're accomodating every one of your customer's with a good seat.

Waiting another 50 years to get the governments aligned again would be not smart. Doubling the capacity of Okanagan Hockey School, one of the finest, oldest & best in the entire world, is a very smart decision.

Besides, the metropolitan area of Penticton, according estimates at Wikipedia, is over 41,000, and it is definitely growing.

I personally know people that live in Osoyoos that have season's tickets to the Rockets, not to mention my brother, who also lives there, and has Vancouver Canuck's season's tickets.

I guess my point is, there is a great demand in smaller towns for better hockey & facilities. To characterize this move as stupid isn't nearly correct.

Still seems like a lot. And do more seats in the stands increase the capacity of the hockey school?

My only complaint about Penticton when I lived there was that it is depressing in the winter (only sunshine is occasionally at Apex, which I miss BIG TIME. Best snow ever). So if this arena brings more action, then good on em for building it.